A template for advanced learner tasks: Staging genre reading and cultural literacy through the précis

Abstract

This chapter illustrates how to use the précis as a template for pedagogical tasks that integrate comprehension and production practice in ways that can enable learners to identify the messages, obligatory textual moves, and lan-guage features of various genres. Exemplified with reference to both fictional and nonfictional genres that are thematically related to the novel Like Water for Chocolate, précis tasks are shown to originate in terms of specific genre features, such as distinctions between formal and informal, private and public discourses, and the language situation (sender/receiver relationship). Iargue that only after identifying characteristics of the media presentation,genre conventions, and handling of stereotypes are students in a position to analyze and articulate textual information in a culturally appropriate fashion. Examples also show how students who compare key differences between various thematically-related genres can construct verifiable bases for drawing inferences about the broader cultural implications of such changes,thereby becoming competent advanced users of a second language.